SINN FEIN ADAMS IN OFFICE 'FIT FOR KING'

GERRY ADAMS has been given a pounds 1million office in the House of Commons described as "fit for a king".

The Sinn Fein leader has sparked outrage among MPs after being given the most sumptuous suite in the entire Palace of Westminster.

The magnificent office has been created out of four old rooms and then painstakingly restored to World Heritage standards at a cost of pounds 1million. To buy or lease such an office, which has spectacular views across Millbank and Parliament Square would cost much more.

The room, which has been returned to its Victorian splendour, with a handpainted ceiling and stone fireplace, also has the latest modern features such as air conditioning. The staircase leading to it is permanently guarded from terrorist attack by an armed police officer.

This morning, MPs were outraged.

Tory frontbencher Alan Duncan said: "We all voted against this. They don't have to take their seat, they walk off with all the money, and now they have got the best offices too. These priorities have become sick."

This view reflects the mounting anger at the efforts the Government is making to accommodate Sinn Fein.

The decision to let Mr Adams and his Sinn Fein colleagues have Westminster's

most desirable office was taken by Labour's deputy chief whip, Keith Hill.

The huge cost of Mr Adams's new base - thousands of pounds were spent on the handmade green flock walllpaper alone - will come as a bitter contrast to the likes of Colin and Wendy Parry, whose 12-year- old son Tim was killed in the Warrington bomb in 1993. They were awarded compensation of pounds 7,500.

It will also seem incomprehensible to those who saw their offices or homes destroyed in countless atrocities, including the Manchester bombing, which alone cost pounds 1 billion to repair.

Mr Adams and three colleagues including Martin McGuinness, a selfconfessed former IRA leader in Londonderry who it has been alleged in the Commons ordered 12 murders, will

be able to move in in three weeks, vacating the temporary offices they were allocated last month. They have since hardly used them.

In January, Mr Adams, who is alleged to have been an IRA commander but who has always denied this and never been convicted of a terrorist offence, made a great show of displaying the Irish flag when he first arrived in Westminster. For years he had been denied offices because of his refusal to pledge allegiance to the Queen.

He and Mr McGuinness perfor med a " victory parade" from Downing Street to the Palace of Westminster, describing this as a "historic achievement".

Derek Conway, Tory chairman of the Commons, said: "The room, in my view, is the most breathtakingly magnificent room in Westminster, better than even some of the rooms in the Speaker's House. Originally it had been earmarked for receptions which could be hired by MPs - because of the splendid views."

The office, only a short distance from the spot where republican terrorists killed Tory MP Airey Neave in 1979, is considerably more desirable than those given to the Ulster Unionists.

Northern Ireland's First Minister David Trimble has three small rooms with narrow windows overlooking a road.

Ulster Unionist MP Roy Beggs said: "David Trimble is not complaining nor is he an envious man but he does think that perhaps he [Adams] should have been given an office more befitting to his job."

The allocation of the office will be debated by MPs later this month.

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